Publishing in English done, new ventures starting

The year 2021 is over, and 2022 is starting! For Dragons Out Oy, 2021 was the "English publishing year".  Dragons Out! book English Edition was launched on July 30th, 2021 and delivered to those who preordered the book over the next few months. Next in line, there are translation projects, other interesting Dragons Out initiatives, and of course, lots of marketing and school cooperation.

So, after many reviews, the English edition of Dragons Out! - the book about dragons, knights and software testing, was published on July 30th, 2021. It was a soft launch due to the holiday season. The deliveries rolled out to all those who preordered in the next few months. Covid-19 pandemic played its role making the delivery times extremely unpredictable. It didn't help that the EU treatment of UK deliveries due to Brexit changed on July 1st. Some shipments would go through in a few days, and some would take a few months. To my understanding everyone, who preordered the book through me during the past two years, now has their book(s). Let me know if you still haven't received your book, and let's fix the situation!

Dragons Out e-books are available through big e-commerce websites, like Amazon. Dragons Out audiobook is in production at my publisher Austin Macauley - it was also part of the publishing deal. I've already chosen the narrator voice out of many samples.

I was able to present physically in six events during autumn 2021. Pandemic was easing up that time, and respecting corona safety requirements, and with the full set of vaccinations, I was happy to meet people face-to-face, get some non-verbal feedback, see the smiles of the faces of enthusiastic readers (or just eyes with the masks...), and sign books with a special dedication. Now that the pandemic is back in full scale with the omicron variant let's see when the next face-to-face event will be. Anyway, several online conferences are scheduled, again! 

Concerning school cooperation, I will again give guest lessons at a small number of schools this spring. It was great to discuss with many teachers in the teacher trade fair ITK in December and get new connections and ideas! There's also plenty of interest for a softback version of the Finnish book. Let's see about that!

I've mentioned several times that the next big thing in Dragons Out is the translation projects of the actual book to more languages. I have several countries where I can translate to local languages if I find the translating party from my local contacts. For many languages, the translation rights are with my English publisher, but I have the rights for chosen countries. At the moment, the Polish publishing deal is signed between me and a Polish publisher PWN. The translation deal to Polish is signed with SJSI (the Polish Testing Board). Great! In French, we are moving in different steps: the translation deal is signed with Olivier Denoo (from CFTL, the French Testing Board), and the manuscript is already translated! We have submitted the translated manuscript to many French publishers, waiting for good offers!

Concerning translations, the free Creative Commons licensed PowerPoint presentation "Dragon Lesson in Software Testing" relies on volunteers translating the presentation. It is great to see the local communities stepping up and making this free resource available to their language group. At the moment, the presentation is published in Finnish, English, French, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Georgian, and Italian. Also in various stages of translation and review are the following languages: German, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Hungarian, Chinese, Turkish, Serbian, Slovak, Greek, and Arabic. Let's hope to get these translations online soon! https://www.dragonsout.com/p/presentation-for-teachers.html

During the year, I was happy to get lots of publicity. The most significant mention, of course, was me being awarded the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award, the most prestigious testing achievement in Europe! Also, I was thrilled that Dragons Out! book made it to the top of the Best New Software Testing Books listing by Book Authority. And of course, it was great to hand the Diploma of Donations to the Finnish Minister of Education, Li Anderson, along with a copy of the Finnish and the English Dragons Out! book. As my employer Knowit had issued the challenge to the ICT sector to donate software testing books to schools, Knowit released the official press release celebrating the donation campaign. Over 20 companies and associations donated to over 60 schools in Finland, and there was also lots of international donation action happening! See more about Dragons Out! in the news here https://www.dragonsout.com/p/news-coverage-of-dragons-out.html 

Now, there's some talk about TV, films, games. Let's see which direction we'll go next. The journey continues!



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